The only thing that makes for interesting music is personality – and I don’t see that anywhere in those bands. I see it in Polly Harvey, The Fall, even in Loz from Kingmaker. But Sub Pop bands have no personality. They have hair.

21 OCTOBER – 23 DECEMBER 1992Radiohead support Kingmaker. Beneath a juggler on the bill.

Loz Hardy (Kingmaker singer]: I don’t think the juggler particularly had any more of a fanbase than Radiohead. Though this was BC – “Before Creep”. We liked them because, like us, they were fairly straightforward rock, as well as being uncool and unglamorous! I think they’re a bit embarrassed about the association now – I saw Thom a few years later and he made no acknowledgement of the fact he’d toured with us.
I remember they were very passionate and emotive, if not particularly musically inventive. There was a very melancholy air surrounding them on that tour, because they thought they were going to be dropped. Thom’d be sat at the bar and there’d be tears in his beer. He took the responsibility of it all entirely on his own shoulders. I was trying to console them over lots of intense drinking sessions. They’d been pounding the streets with a couple of quid in their shoes and worked so hard to get a piece of the pie and there was none left. It’s hard when you realise that someone with a cheque book can control your destiny like that. I think that explains a lot about how they are as a band these days. Back then, though, the frustration and anger were palpable when they took the stage. They were fierce.